South Australians not taken in by Business S.A.’s pro nuclear spin
Dennis Matthews, 4 March 14 Business SA has clearly not been paying attention (The Advertiser,4/3/14). We have had debates on all manner of nuclear issues off and on for decades including uranium processing and enrichment, nuclear power and importing nuclear waste.
The resounding response has always been NO.
Or is it possible that Business SA is not happy with the answer and think that by badgering the public every election year that they will finally get their way?
As shown by recent debates on nuclear power and nuclear waste disposal the general public is well and truly a wakeup to the likes of Business SA. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
South Australia’s Chamber of Mines welcomes corporate welfare
Dennis Matthews, 4 March 14, The term “royalty holiday” (The Advertiser, 4/3/14) conjures up an image of pampered princes and princesses globetrotting on a luxury holiday at taxpayer’s expense.
In fact, in the case of mining royalties this is not far off because not having to pay “royalties” is a form of welfare to rich corporations. The term “royalty” is an archaic term for paying for a non-renewable resource that belongs to the government and hence the tax-payer. Not paying such royalties amounts to a donation of our non-renewable resources to corporations that are far from needy.
No wonder the SA Chamber of Mines welcomes such “royalty relief”.
Fukushima nuclear situation- desperate drive to deny that it is serious
the desperate drive—in which a largely compliant mainstream media have been complicit—to deny the Fukushima catastrophe, a disaster deeply affecting life on Earth.
Nuclear Denial: The Giant Lie About Fukushima, CounterPunch, MARCH 03, 2014 by KARL GROSSMAN With the third anniversary of the start of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear catastrophe coming next week, the attempted Giant Lie about the disaster continues—a suppression of information, an effort at dishonesty of historical dimensions.
It involves international entities, especially the International Atomic Energy Agency, national governmental bodies—led in Japan by its current prime minister, the powerful nuclear industry and a “nuclear establishment” of scientists and others with a vested interest in atomic energy.
Deception was integral to the push for nuclear power from its start. Indeed, I opened my first book on nuclear technology, Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power, with: “You have not been informed about nuclear power. You have not been told. And that has been done on purpose. Keeping the public in the dark was deemed necessary by the promoters of nuclear power if it was to succeed. Those in government, science and private industry who have been pushing nuclear power realized that if people were given the facts, if they knew the consequences of nuclear power, they would not stand for it.”…… Continue reading
NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROLIFERATION IN SOUTH AUSTRALIA 1945 – 1965
Nuclear Information Centre, Conservation Council of South Australia INTRODUCTION The ways in which a country or state can contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons are many and varied. They include direct and indirect, overt and covert, subtle and not so subtle; the line between contributing and not contributing is fuzzy and elusive. What may be ignored at one time may later be seen to be highly significant.
We will concentrate on the obvious and widely acknowledged contributions.
A successful nuclear weapons program requires:
- A pool of knowledge
- A supply of highly trained specialists
- Research and development
- A source of fissionable material
- The facilities for converting the fissionable material into weapons grade
- Testing of guidance and delivery systems, firing mechanisms, various materials, and complete weapons.
We will limit this article to contributions made in the post-war period 1945 to 1965, which constitutes the first phase of South Australia’s contribution to nuclear weapons proliferation.
History will probably record that the second phase started with the discovery of uranium at Beverly east of Mt. Painter (1969), at Honeymoon about 75 km north-west of Broken Hill (1972), and at Olympic Dam on the Roxby Downs station (1975).
The Olympic Dam mine at Roxby Downs has been exporting to nuclear weapons states since it began production in 1988. Continue reading
Australia’s flawed “mine-set” about coal mining
Dennis Matthews, 4 March 14 The toxic fumes that are causing residents to flee from Morwell in Victoria and the deadly smog that is covering cities in China have the same origin, burning coal.
China appears not to have learned the lessons of Europe’s industrial revolution but Australia is in no position to criticize. Coal is the fuel of centuries past but Australia is still using it in large quantities and exporting it in massive quantities to countries like China. All in the name of increased wealth with little thought of the costs to health and the environment.
The sooner we start employing more people in energy efficiency and renewable energy the sooner we can get away from this mine-set, that digging things up and polluting air, soil and water constitutes progress.
Prospects for global growth in renewable energy
The global outlook for renewable energy http://www.lowyinterpreter.org/post/2014/03/04/Whats-the-global-outlook-for-renewable-energy.aspx My previous article showed that there has been an unprecedented level of investment in renewable energy over the last decade. Let’s consider the drivers for this in more detail and look to the future. Continue reading
Fukushima cover-up – but doing nothing is not an option
To stem any such public anxiety, TEPCO and Japanese government officials minimized the damage at Dai-ichi and assured its population that the situation was certainly not another Chernobyl. Untrue. In important ways, the Japan situation is worse: …
The good news is that there is some movement as citizens, news media and public officials are starting to demand answers about Fukushima radiation. The bad news is that it’s difficult to pry out documented facts from TEPCO and/or the Japanese government as both continue to stonewall requests for information.
it’s way beyond time for a full-court-press approach by the U.S. and global community to challenge what may be a whitewashed cover-up, and with intensified scientific research and accurate figures and diagnosis, to get to the bottom of what’s happening at the Fukushima Dai-ichi power plant. Doing nothing is not an option.
Cutting through Fukushima Fog: Radiation in U.S. Bernard Weiner, Dissident Voice March 3rd, 2014 Governments cite “national security” concerns and “official secrets” as their justification for withholding information from the public. Corporations rationalize their secrecy behind concerns about “patent infringement,” shielding their trademarked “proprietary” secrets from competitors. But most of the time, such obfuscation is really derived from the time-honored villains of systemic corruption and what is politely known as CYA in military and bureaucratic slang.
Which brings us to Fukushima.
From the very beginning of this catastrophic emergency — the earthquake/tsunami off the Japanese coast in March of 2011, when nuclear reactors at a power plant were flooded and then exploded and began their meltdowns — the public in Japan and around the world have not been told the full story of what’s been happening at the Dai-ichi nuclear-power plant in Fukushima province. Continue reading
Victims of hate speech are often powerless to respond
Hate speech ignores victims’ ability to respond There is one vital point that James Allan ignores: the power relationship between abuser and victim (”These elitist hate-speech laws erode democracy”, March 3). SMH, 4 Mar 14
His naive claim that the victim can respond by saying why the abuser is wrong ignores the fact that shock-jocks or other media commentators, without such laws, are free to trade in insults without allowing their victims any opportunity to respond. Nor will a racist on a bus, screaming abuse. What would he be prepared to do to enforce the right of reply?
Ron Pretty Farmborough Heights
James Allan claims that the proof that hate speech laws don’t work is that the US doesn’t have them and Canada got rid of them, while France and Germany do have them and look at how horrible it is there.
In fact, Professor Allan would struggle to think of a country which has been successful at absorbing immigrants which doesn’t have hate speech laws – and there is a reason for that.
In countries like Australia, the community needs to send a strong message that racist vitriol is unwelcome. That is why we have laws against it………http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-letters/hate-speech-ignores-victims-ability-to-respond-20140303-340gg.html
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 